M. Féli was in one of his most delightful moods, recounting the experiences of his late Italian journey, and drawing out in his genial way the keen observations of the young men about him--of all excepting poor Maurice, who stood silent among the hopeful, eager talkers, painfully conscious of himself and distrustful of others, we must confess, with all affectionate sympathy for our hero. But in his reserved mien, in his expressive southern eyes and intellectual face, there was a magnetism that won completely M. de Marzan's attention from the delights of conversation, and as soon as the evening ended, he obtained an introduction through Elie de Kertauguy, a handsome, gifted youth from Lower Brittany, passionately devoted to Lamennais, and compassionately attentive to Guérin, regarding him, as did most of the inmates of La Chênaie, as a refined but very inefficient member of their circle.
Not so Marzan, who in twenty-four hours had thawed Maurice's reserve, won his confidence, seen his journal, heard the circumstances of his unrequited love for Mlle. de Bayne, and laid the foundation of a friendship that lasted unbroken to the day of Guérin's death. What days, and nights too, of rapture these two young poets used to spend together, guided by their older and more experienced friend, Hippolyte de La Morvonnais (a frequent visitor at La Chênaie), who had been to Grasmere to visit Wordsworth, and come home imbued with veneration for "Les Lakistes". (The Lake Poets). There came to be a mania among the three friends for describing in homely language the simplest domestic details, which they considered it a triumph in art to be able to give in a rhythm so dubious that none but the initiated could tell whether it was meant for prose or verse.
Even at this early period, Guérin gave evidence of the peculiar strength and weakness of his style, the vagueness and looseness of his verse, the faultless harmony of his prose, which is as pure as air, free from the least touch of provincialism or mannerism; and yet, in the simple fervor of its revelations of the secrets that nature poured into his attentive ear, we are reminded of the sweet pipings of the Ettrick Shepherd, as dear old Christopher North interprets them to us. Through him we see and hear trees wave and waters flow, birds sing and winds sigh in the woods, and without being disturbed by moral inferences and philosophical conclusions. And surely, when beauty comes to us so pure and fresh and untarnished, she may be left to teach her own lessons, which come to us so softly too from her lips.
The months that Maurice spent at La Chênaie were not especially fruitful to him, except in the sad experiences that tended to develop his moral strength. But for Morvonnais and Marzan, he would have remained quite unappreciated, for Lamennais, who gave the tone to the household, was too much "absorbed in his apocalyptic social visions" [Footnote 66] to be conscious of the jewel that glittered before his eyes. Lamennais was a logician, a philosopher, a passionate and fanatical worker. Guérin was a man of [{416}] exquisite artistic perceptions, but dreamy, undecided, deficient in vigor. Odin and Apollo,--sledge-hammer and chisel,--thunderbolt and sunbeam, are not more unlike in use and significance. M. Féli offered nothing but pitying tenderness, which Maurice accepted in dumb veneration. No wonder that, with the life at La Chênaie, all intimate intercourse between them ceased.
[Footnote 66: Sainte-Beuve.]
But it is a matter for surprise that, with all his powers of fascination, Lamennais inflicted (so far as we can learn the circumstances of the case) no permanent injury upon the faith of any one of his companions at La Chênaie. Lacordaire, Gerbet, Montalembert, and Bohrbacher became renowned champions of the church. Combalot, who had adored Lamennais, burst forth into a storm of invectives against him (as is the wont of disappointed idolaters), and then exclaimed, "Alas! I have wounded that heart into which I could have poured torrents of love!" Morvonnais and Marzan were ardent believers; Elie de Kertauguy and Guérin died Catholics. In short, Lamennais had devoted the prime of life to the church, and in those years had uttered words of wisdom never to be unsaid or forgotten. In spite of himself he must always be an eloquent advocate of the faith he deserted, a powerful enemy of the cause he espoused.
The time was already drawing near when the asylum should be closed to Maurice where he had found, in spite of disappointment and frequent depression, a happy, congenial home. On Easter Sunday, Lamennais celebrated his last mass and gave communion to all the little circle. "Who would have said" (we quote from Sainte-Beuve) "to those who clustered round the master, that he who had just given them communion, would never administer it again to anyone; that he would refuse it forevermore; and that he would soon adopt for his too true device an oak shattered by the storm, with the proud motto: I break but bend not! A Titan's device, à la Capanée!"
Early in the autumn of 1833, the Bishop of Rennes ordered the dissolution of Lamennais' religious community, and the pupils were removed to Ploërmel, where they continued their studies under the supervision of M. Jean de Lamennais. M. Féli disbanded his little army with the dignity of a defeated general, and then threw himself single-handed again into the fight. He changed his patrician name to F. Lamennais, and demanded of democracy (says one of his biographers), as he had demanded of the church, a wand-stroke that should free the world at once from suffering and oppression. His success may be judged by the political history of France in the last sixteen years. In religion he adopted "Christianisme législate," [Footnote 67] whatever that may be. "If," said he, "men feel so irresistibly impelled to unite themselves to God that they return to Christianity, let no one suppose that it can be to that Christianity which presents itself under the name of Catholicism."
[Footnote 67: Lamartine.]
In the revolution of '48 he thought he saw the birth of liberty; in the "Coup d'Etat" he received its death-blow in his own person. Baffled on every side, he betook himself to literature, and translated the "Divina Commedia;" then "feeling within him no life-sustaining thought," he died in his seventy-third year, after an illness of a few weeks, leaving these words in his will: "I will be buried among the poor, and like the poor. I will have nothing over my grave, not even a stone; nor will I have my body carried into any church." They laid him in Père la Chaise, and no word of blessing was uttered over his grave. Poor Lamennais! What magnificent possibilities were shattered in his fall!